Does paying salesclerks well pay off?

[jsr]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-books-20140209,0,5474913.story

Does paying salesclerks well pay off?
'The Good Jobs Strategy' argues that better salaries and more employee empowerment lead to better returns than Wal-Mart gets.
By Gill Plimmer
February 9, 2014, 5:00 a.m.

When Madonna was on tour in Spain a few years ago, teenage girls turned up at her final performance wearing the very outfit she had worn for her first show. They had bought it from Zara, the Spanish retailer.

While most fashion retailers take months to introduce new product lines, Zara's supply chain can design and deliver new clothes to its 1,500 stores in more than 70 countries within days.

In her book "The Good Jobs Strategy," published by New Harvest, Zeynep Ton argues that Zara's investment in staff is crucial to this speed, together with its ability to collect information from employees on what is popular. Zara's shop assistants, for example, tell managers when customers are requesting a long-sleeved version of a particular shirt.

Ton, an academic at MIT's Sloan School of Management, set out to discover how Zara and other successful retailers treat employees better than their rivals do, yet still deliver healthy profits and shareholder returns.

[Uben]

1. No, they'll just spend it...

..and that'll make the economy better, and more people will be moved out of poverty making Obama look good, and god knows we can't have that!

[Egalitarian Thug]

2. Taking good care of your people always pays off and screwing them is always expensive.

More than money, of course there has to be enough so that they are not worried about paying bills, people want to be involved, to invest themselves in what they do. When people are in a position where they feel comfortable that their job is not always hanging by a whim, they work hard, they bring ideas to the table, and they'll when the inevitable fires spring up, they will go above and beyond making sure it is put out quickly and the damage is repaired.

Going the other way, treat them badly or indifferently and they will take every opportunity to "get theirs" back from you. In addition, all that creativity will come out in ways to hurt you, back.

[reddread]

3. not nearly as well as those self-checkout machines

the role of technology in decimating our workplace opportunities goes constantly unmentioned.
I avoid self-checkout about 95% of the time.
If I were to eat at fast food joints, I would leave my tray on the table as well.